


With These Broken Wings (Take Flight)

by laniew1



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-17
Updated: 2010-06-17
Packaged: 2017-10-10 04:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laniew1/pseuds/laniew1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first indication that he is not alone comes when something wraps him in warmth and love. It is the vaguest sort of familiarity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Castiel:**

  
There is no pain.

After the flash, when he displaces himself to displace the others and to allow Dean and Sam their suicide mission to retrieve their brother, there is nothing.

He can feel none of his brethren around him, can feel nothing but empty space.

He waits for Michael to call for him, to punish him for attempting to stand between him and his chosen vessel; he waits for Lucifer to call for him to punish him for trying to stop Sam from saying yes.

He wonders if it is done yet. If his brothers have fought, have left the world in a bloody shambles.

No call comes and he waits, he is so very tired and while there is no pain he thinks that if he makes movements to go back there will be.

  


******************************************************************************

The first indication that he is not alone comes when something wraps him in warmth and love. It is the vaguest sort of familiarity.

He can feel the brush of wings against what would be his back, they tickle the side of his face and he curls in on himself and waits for reprimands and punishment.

He can not tell which of his brothers has been sent for him.

“You’re a mess and a half,” he hears murmured against the side of his neck and it startles him enough that he twists and turns.

He is allowed that and Gabriel smirks down at him before pressing fingers against his forehead.

He slumbers.

  


******************************************************************************

The room he wakens to is filled with color and noise.

It takes long moments while he blinks away the forced sleep for him to become aware enough to gauge how injured he still is. When he is finally fully aware of his surroundings he can feel the rough sheets against his bare skin, can feel the pain of the sigil that he had voluntarily cut into his own chest.

Can hear Gabriel and Sam arguing in low tones.

There is no noise from Dean and Castiel is grateful that Sam, at least, is continuing to say no.

When he focuses on the direction the noise is coming from he sees Gabriel and Sam standing toe to toe and a short distance away…

It startles a noise out of him, because he is not expecting to see Dean Winchester sitting slumped in a chair, arms crossed over his chest, head leaned back, eyes closed.

The bruises and marks that Castiel had left on his skin in anger are still there.

Dean Winchester has not allowed Michael access.

Not yet anyway.

  


******************************************************************************

Gabriel has them spirited away, hidden from both Heaven and Hell and Castiel does not ask what he is hiding them in exchange for.

He has not asked for anything from him, and if he is asking anything of Dean and Sam it is something that they are giving willingly enough. It is not his place to question.

  


******************************************************************************

Dean does not say anything, he smirks and talks in quiet tones to Sam, he and Gabriel will exchange snarky one liners, and he will disappear outside to talk to Bobby or other Hunters; but to Castiel he has been largely silent.

He watches him but will not say anything.

Castiel wonders how they had escaped the Waiting Room; there is no sign of the half-Winchester brother so he wonders if the boy was returned to heaven or if the brothers had never made it into the room to free him. He doesn’t ask, Dean is already teetering too close to the edge of saying yes to Michael; he does not want to push him any further.

  


******************************************************************************

Dean disappears most mornings, Castiel wakes and he always finds Sam and Gabriel arguing over coffee but Dean is never there.

He has checked the room that Dean has claimed as his own but though the covers are disturbed like someone had just been sleeping there moments before, Dean is never there.

He does not ask; even in his guise as Trickster, even though he has been far removed from Heaven’s embrace for more years then Castiel can remember; Gabriel as Archangel still outranks him and if Gabriel is not concerned then Castiel need not be concerned.

Castiel is concerned; he thinks he hides it well.

  


******************************************************************************

He sits on the back porch; the sun is out and there is a patch of it that warms him.

“You’re like a cat,” Gabriel says, he sits down next to him and leans back, elbows propping him up. “What are we waiting for?”

“Dean Winchester has not returned,” Castiel says.

He thinks he has been very patient, Dean was, of course, gone when Castiel finished resting; in days past he had returned by lunch, today is the first where he has not.

“Probably got a bit in town,” Gabriel says. He still does not seem worried.

  


******************************************************************************

Dean does not return by dinner and the calls that Sam places to his phone are not answered. Sometime between the fifth and sixth call it is turned off, whether by Dean’s hand or someone else’s, and the calls go directly to his voice mail.

“Zachariah is gone,” Sam says and Castiel looks at him in askance. “Who would have taken his place?”

“What do you mean, Zachariah is gone?” Gabriel asks with narrowed eyes, Castiel looks over at him and he seems as unknowing at what had transpired between the brothers Winchester and Zachariah as Castiel.

“Dean killed him, in that room,” Sam says, he looks down at the phone in his hand. It is silent and still.

“He can’t have,” Gabriel says.

“Only an angel can kill another angel,” Castiel adds in a quiet voice. Gabriel nods in agreement and Sam looks between them, there is a look of dawning horror on his face.

“What happened? The key is in the details,” Gabriel says. “So be explicit.”

“He’d just said yes,” Sam says, he is still looking between them and his phone and Castiel can see that his hand is trembling. “Zachariah had done some ritual thing. To call Michael and Dean said,” Sam clears his throat.

“He winked at me and he told Zachariah that he had some conditions, that Michael had to kill him, Zachariah first and Zachariah, he, well he told Dean that Michael wouldn’t do that and Dean said that he would and he,” Sam looks at Castiel.

“He had that knife of yours and he stabbed him and… I closed my eyes, because, well I still wanted to have eyes when it was all said and done and when I opened them Dean was there and Zachariah wasn’t. We got out of the room before Michael got there, but Adam… Michael probably took Adam in place of Dean.”

“I had my knife,” Castiel says, he is cold suddenly and unsure of what is going on. “I never gave it to Dean.”

“And Michael wouldn’t have needed to be called to take Dean,” Gabriel says. “The moment that Dean said yes and meant it Michael would have been able to take him, there’s no summoning involved.”

He rubs a hand over his face and when he withdraws it he looking at the door.

“We’re missing something,” Gabriel says.

“He’s been here, with us for the last week,” Sam says. “Wouldn’t we know if, you know, he was one of you?”

“Not necessarily,” Gabriel says.

“He would at least have to know,” Castiel states. “Especially if he were going to attempt to mask his presence here.”

“You think Michael is already is already wearing him… don’t you? Why would he…? He just made the decision and the angels didn’t even know, they’d pulled the Adam card trying to lure him into it, he let Castiel beat the shit out of him… when would he…”

Gabriel shakes his head and Castiel tries to remember the last time that he felt Michael’s presence, it has been a number of years, but Michael’s Grace is hard to forget.

Gabriel was one of Michael’s closest compatriots; _he_, at the very least, should be able to determine if Michael walks among them in Dean Winchester’s skin and if he calls Michael should answer.

  


******************************************************************************

Dean returns at dusk, he does not look any worse for wear, does not look like he was in a fight that kept him from returning in time for lunch.

They all stare at him and Castiel can tell that Gabriel is pushing and pulling and searching for some sign that Michael resides within Dean.

“Got something on my face?” Dean asks, his lips quirk and he wipes at his chin as if to wipe away something.

“Where were you?” Sam asks finally to break the silence.

“You need me to explain the birds and the bees to you again, Sammy?” Dean asks, a familiar smirk settles on his face, though it does not settle the feeling that there is something amiss that has taken up residence in Castiel’s stomach.

  


******************************************************************************

Sam insists on calling Chuck once they determine that Dean is gone again the next morning. Gabriel wants to try and track him; Castiel thinks that if Michael doesn’t want to be found, he will not be found.

Sam insists that they can maybe glean much more information from Chuck then having Gabriel fail at finding Dean.

There is a phone in the living room that can be made to talk without the speaker and Gabriel paces the edges of the room while Sam leans over it.

“Chuck?” Sam asks and Castiel can hear the Prophet Chuck laugh, it sounds forced.

“Wow, déjà vu, I kind of just finished _writing_ this conversation,” he says, there is no more laughter in his voice, forced or otherwise, that Castiel can hear. “I don’t know,” he says. “I know what you guys want to know, but I just… I’m not _getting_ Dean anymore and I looked back over the last couple of books and I’ve not been really getting him for a while.”

“You are not seeing Dean Winchester in your prophecies any longer?” Castiel asks. He looks at Gabriel and Gabriel has his arms crossed over his chest and he will leave soon to attempt to track the angel masquerading as Dean Winchester.

If it is not Michael… it _has_ to be Michael, Castiel decides. It has to be, because no other Angel would attempt to take Dean knowing that he is Michael’s chosen host. He wonders why Michael has not unmasked himself, why he continues to hide his presence while within Gabriel’s walls.

“No, no I _see_ him just fine; I just, I don’t get his motivations anymore. I see everything he’s doing I just don’t know why he’s _doing_ it,” Chuck sounds disturbed by the fact.

“He killed Zachariah,” Chuck says. “I don’t know where the knife came from because as far as I can tell he didn’t have it when he went into the waiting room and when he killed him,” Chuck goes quiet, clears his throat finally.

“He looked right _at_ him,” Chuck says. “He stared at him and, ‘he watches as Zachariah’s Grace explodes from within the hosts body, the white light reflecting in his eyes, he doesn’t flinch, he doesn’t look away. Not until the last bit of the Grace is gone’,” he says. Castiel knows that Chuck is reading from whatever last bit he’d gotten down, whether it be from paper or from memory.

It doesn’t matter, the impact is the same.

Castiel looks at where Sam has his head in his hands, looks at where Gabriel is staring at a wall. Michael and Gabriel were as close as brothers and the rumor mill which Castiel tried to ignore had insinuated for centuries that prior to Gabriel’s leaving that had been even closer then that.

“He shouldn’t have been able to do any of those things,” Chuck says finally.

It is a vast understatement.

  


******************************************************************************

Dean returns that night, right after the evening meal has been eaten. Sam has saved a plate for him and he pokes and prods at the food but does not eat.

“Not hungry?” Gabriel queries, he is watching closely, Castiel knows that he is looking for any signs of Michael (or any other angel) within the skin of Dean’s body.

“I ate in town, was nice of you to save me a plate though,” Dean says. Sam makes a noise from where he has his back to them. Castiel watches Dean stretch, watches as he links his fingers together and cracks his knuckles.

“Gonna go watch some TV,” he stands and leaves the plate sitting mostly untouched in the middle of the table.

Castiel looks to Gabriel and he is watching Dean depart with narrowed eyes.

  


******************************************************************************

Castiel is in the shadows, he does not think that Dean (or whatever is within Dean’s skin) knows that he is there. Though maybe he is aware and just does not care.

Gabriel comes out the front door and he stands there, illuminated by the lights from within the house.

“Something you want to say?” Dean asks. He is leaning against one of the poles on either side of the steps up onto the porch. He does not turn to face Gabriel, in fact he sounds bored.

“Where are you going during the day?” he asks. It is not the question that Castiel thought that he would ask first. Though he has more rights to the answer then even Sam does.

“I think that’s kind of private, dude.”

Gabriel’s lips thin and Castiel wonders if he should make his presence known.

“I think I have more rights to the answer then anyone else,” Gabriel says, there is a hint of anger in his voice. Castiel has heard him angry when talking to the Winchesters before, this is a different tone of anger; this one has almost a ring of betrayal to it.

Dean turns at that and he looks bored, though his eyes are dark. “What rights do you think you can possibly have over where I spend my time?”

“I think I have bond rights,” Gabriel says, he reaches out as if to touch Dean and Dean slaps his hand away. “That’s what I thought.”

He grabs a fist of Dean’s t-shirt and yanks him forward. The kiss is hard and brutal; when Dean pushes him away finally Castiel can see blood on Gabriel’s lips and anger flashing in Dean’s eyes.

Castiel can see the truth of it, even with Dean storming into the house as if the hounds of hell are nipping at his heels.

Dean had kissed Gabriel back, and just for the barest of seconds _while_ they had been kissing Castiel had seen the flash of Grace from within Dean. Quickly hidden, quickly smothered, but completely unmistakable even from just that brief glimpse.

He comes out of the shadows and Gabriel has fingers pressed to his mouth. He looks…

“He shouldn’t be able to do that,” Gabriel says. “Unless that body is completely and utterly his, he shouldn’t be able to hide his presence like that.”

Castiel nods and puzzle pieces begin to slot into place.

He does not think he has them all yet but he has a feeling that whoever Zachariah had been getting his orders from, whoever he had been trying to get into Dean’s body, it had not been Michael.

Because Michael had already been there, maybe not awake, not fully, not then.

But he is now.

“He doesn’t trust us,” Gabriel says. He sounds almost hurt by that fact.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He feels like he's playing hide-and-seek with Dean, just when he thinks that he's got his location nailed down he'll disappear off his radar.

**Gabriel:**

He’s not jealous.

He’s not.

It’s just that there are very few things that he believes in anymore; the sanctity of the bond that is still apparently firmly in place between himself and Michael is one of those things.

Because the thing is Michael could have broken it, Gabriel had expected him to. It would have been painful, Father would have disapproved. But once Gabriel fled Heaven he could have done it.

He could have broken the bond and moved on to someone else. Gabriel knows that there were others, _many_ others; some of them would have been more then willing to move into his side of their bed while Gabriel was still _there_.

That Michael had left the bond in place; not only left it in place but continued to nurture it from what little Gabriel could see, that surprises him when few other things can.

That Dean Winchester is his Michael; might have always been his Michael is the only other thing _that_ surprises him.

  


******************************************************************************

Dean is gone in the morning, again. Gabriel wants to know where he goes, where he disappears to.

“I should be able to track him now,” Gabriel says. Sam has that pinched tight look on his face. It makes him look like a child getting ready to throw a temper tantrum; Gabriel doesn’t tell him that because he thinks that Sam might actually do it if he says it. He can’t deal with the unruly child that Dean has left him baby-sitting while trying to track down his missing bond-mate.

“I thought Castiel hid us from angel-view,” Sam says. “Also, isn’t he _hiding_ from you,” Gabriel raises an eyebrow at the tone in Sam’s voice. It’s snide and sarcastic with a hint of ‘na-na-na-na-na na’. He’s actually kind of impressed the kid can manage to do that all in one tone.

He doesn’t have any problem beating the boy like the recalcitrant child that he’s acting like. Though Dean would most likely have problems with him having done it when he returned.

“But he’s not really human anymore, now is he,” Gabriel says. “Besides now I know what to look for and that makes things a lot easier.” And he does know what to look for.

Also, he has a feeling that when Dean leaves the house they’ve been residing in that he gives up _all_ pretenses of hiding.

Finding him should be pretty fucking easy.

“So what? You find him and what? Drag him back here? What good is that going to do? He’ll just leave again, and he hasn’t even explicitly admitted to _being_ Michael,” Sam says. “What’s to stop him from leaving again and just not coming back?”

“There’s ways to keep him here,” Gabriel says. And he completely has no qualms about doing any of them. If it means binding him to the house and moving himself into the room that Dean has claimed as his own then so be it.

If it means circling Dean’s bed with Holy Fire then he’ll do that too.

He’ll have to be in the bed with him of course, they’ve had their best, most productive arguments in bed. He allows himself a smirk and the wave of nostalgia.

They need to do something, because if they don’t Dean is going to run off and get himself killed and Gabriel just can’t have that; Michael wouldn’t have left the bonds in place if he hadn’t hoped that at some point Gabriel would return to him.

Dean getting himself killed doesn’t work into any of the plans that Gabriel is just beginning to form in place of the ones that he thought long buried.

  


******************************************************************************

He feels like he’s playing hide-and-seek with Dean, just when he thinks that he’s got his location nailed down he’ll disappear off his radar.

He snarls when he reaches the next town, it’s small and almost on the other side of the world, Michael has completely vanished off his radar and Gabriel hadn’t even fully pinpointed his location before he’d done so.

He’s in the right town, but has no clue where to go from there. He stands in the middle of an empty street and glares at the houses on either side of him.

No one approaches him.

He doesn’t admit defeat, that’s not his style; besides there’s always the next day and the next and the next.

Gabriel can be fucking tenacious when he’s chasing after something he really wants, and eventually Michael will get tired of hiding himself so as to not be found.

Either that or Gabriel will get better at determining in what direction he’s heading before he heads there and they’ll get back in synch like they used to be and Gabriel won’t have to chase after him like a teen-age girl.

  


******************************************************************************

He doesn’t need to eat, he does because Sam is making meals for himself and he looks with big puppy dog eyes at where Dean would normally be sitting across from him. Poking fun at the food and Sam’s hair.

The eyes are pitiful and Gabriel only sits there in one of the four chairs and pretends to eat food because at least Sam stops _looking_ at him with those eyes. Castiel always looks sort of confused at it, like he doesn’t understand why Sam persists in placing plates full of food in front of him when he never eats them.

At least there’s always dessert, typically something with double chocolate and rich frosting. He may not eat the food on the plate but he _always_ eats the dessert, sometimes he eats Castiel’s and what Sam has saved for Dean as well.

Sam always folds his arms over his plate and glares at him if he makes a move to take his.

Dean is never there for any of the meals; Dean’s new habit is to return sometime after dark and then disappear again sometime before the sun comes up.

Gabriel isn’t even sure if he’s eating; if he’s right, if Michael has complete control of the body he wouldn’t need to.

He _knows_ he’s right, the feeling of Michael is ingrained deep into his Grace and his bones, he _knows_ how Michael feels and there is nothing within Dean Winchesters body that feels differently then he remembers.

He doesn’t share his body with anybody else, but that was more because he didn’t fall; he just sort of re-imagined himself and hid his Grace behind bindings and spells and Trickster magic.

He wonders when Michael took over. And he wonders how he convinced Dean to move on or if there was ever a Dean to convince to move on. If he’s always been Michael buried behind things that Father would have had to have done because there was no one besides Father powerful enough to hide him.

He feels a pang at the thought that instead of killing Dean Winchester hundreds of times he’d been killing Michael, Michael won’t let him forget that. When things are done, when the dust has settled he’s sure he’ll be punished for it.

He’s almost looking forward to it.

  


******************************************************************************

He’s tired of running after Dean like a pre-teen girl desperate for attention so he instead decides to change his approach; if Mohammad won’t stand still long enough to be found then the mountain will just wait until Mohammed returns.

He spends all day lounging in the bed in Dean’s room. He could just stake out the room right before Dean is scheduled to return, but he has a stack of magazines and besides, the bed that he’s curled up in smells like _Michael_ and home.

He makes a little nest and puts down roots.

“Are you going to wait here all day?” Sam appears in the doorway, he has a glass in one hand and a pained expression on his face.

“Yep,” Gabriel pops the ‘p’ at the end, glances up to see Sam’s expression switch over to something that looks like he’s getting ready to spout off a lecture.

“I know Michael is your,” Sam waves his hand and flushes slightly, “you know, whatever.”

It’s amusing, Gabriel would call him on it but he kind of wants to see where the boy is heading with this. “But Dean’s in there…”

“No, Sammy boy, he’s not,” Gabriel says. Sam just stares at him with wide uncomprehending eyes.

“Michael is all by his lonesome in that body,” Gabriel says, he tries to sound apologetic but he’s almost managed to convince himself that Michael has been here the whole time.

Castiel has told him that they made a sojourn to the past, rushing after Anael to keep her from killing John and Mary Winchester, that Michael had apparently intervened to stop her.

He wonders if that was when Michael made the decision; if he’d spoken to Dean and realized that there would never be a time where he would be able to overcome Dean’s stubbornness to be granted entrance to the body, if he’d decided that falling and taking the body while still inside Mary Winchester’s womb, before the soul of what would have been Dean Winchester was fully tied to it, if he’d decided that doing _that_ was better then continually trying and failing to lure Dean into saying yes to him.

It’s a lot of ifs, Gabriel thinks he’s closer to the truth of what may have transpired then he has been.

“But…” Sam looks distressed.

Gabriel can push; he can talk about Michael and sex and see if he can make Sammy’s face go all thin and annoyed.

But Sam is close to the edge, Gabriel pushing could very well be the thing that tips the scales so he bites his tongue and doesn’t say any of those things.

“Pretty sure that Michael has been your brother this entire time,” Gabriel says instead.

He wonders what woke the sleeping giant, if it was Zachariah pushing and pushing, resurrecting the dead half-brother, or if it was done even before then.

  


******************************************************************************

He’s in that half-way place between sleep and wakefulness. He doesn’t need to sleep, but sometimes closing his eyes and letting the world slow down is the only bit of sanity that he gets.

He hears the creak outside the door right before it opens, when he opens his eyes Dean is standing there, staring down at him.

“I think you’re in the wrong bed there goldilocks,” he says, he turns and shrugs off his coat, hanging it over the back of the chair pushed up into a desk.

Gabriel waves his hand and the door closes with a soft thunk, Dean looks from the door to him, eyebrow raised.

“Pretty presumptuous of you there, Gabriel,” Dean says, Gabriel lets his eyes trail over the man standing in front of him and wonders why he never saw it before.

It’s _so_ completely obvious that it’s a wonder that it didn’t smack him upside the head earlier and call him an idiot.

Because Dean stands like Michael did, does. Confident and in charge and completely comfortable within his own skin.

“I think we need to have a little chat,” Gabriel says.

“I can’t think of what we would need to chat about,” Dean says, his head tilts to one side and they stare at each other.

Gabriel waits, in _this_ he can be patient, he knows he has almost all the time in the world, or at least 24 hours anyway. Until he opens the door and scratches through the symbols or the 24 hours that he asked Castiel for are up; either way Dean isn’t leaving this room.

Dean’s eyes narrow and he starts scanning the walls of the room, turning in a slow circle, he stops moving when he’s facing the door and Gabriel knows what he sees.

Drawn in Gabriel’s blood, the sigil sealing the room. Gabriel watches his shoulders straighten and stiffen, when he turns again to face Gabriel his eyes are sparking in anger.

“Like I said, I think it’s time we had a little chat,” Gabriel smirks at him. Because there’s only one way that Dean would have known what Gabriel had done, would have known to search it out.

“Michael.”

  


******************************************************************************

Dean is fuming and angry, there are no pretenses in place and anything that would have hidden Michael’s presence has been completely obliterated by that anger. He paces the floor in front of the door like a caged animal and periodically makes wordless snarls at him.

Gabriel lounges against the headboard and watches, waits.

“What do you want?” Dean snaps at him, he stands at the edge of the bed finally, arms hanging at his side. His eyes are dark and mean. Michael was the first of them, he’d been the one to wield Father’s sword when Father couldn’t, he was the one that Father sent into battle when he wanted things irrevocably finished, done.

They call Michael Father’s sword, but he’s more like Father’s nuclear weapon, plus he thinks people actually forget that Michael has an actual sword that is Michael’s sword.

“I would think that would be pretty self-explanatory,” Gabriel says. He’s locked them in here, he can get them out or Castiel could open the door from the other side, they’re both keyed to the symbol, but if Dean tries to touch the door handle now it’ll spark electricity at him.

Gabriel’s not opening the door and Castiel has strict orders to not open that door until the time is up.

“_You_ are interfering in things that don’t concern you any longer, _Gabriel_,” Dean says slowly, like he’s speaking to an especially dimwitted child.

“_You_ concern me, and since you seem to think running off and getting yourself slaughtered is nothing to write home about I think I’m _completely_ within my rights to interfere,” Gabriel says. “Besides, I in no way signed on to be a stay at home mom.”

“I don’t belong to you,” Dean says and Gabriel smirks, comes up onto his knees and crawls to the end of the bed. Dean doesn’t move away, just stands there staring at him.

He holds out one hand and when Dean goes to shift away from the impending touch Gabriel grabs hold of his t-shirt to hold him in place. Then presses his other hand right over Dean’s heart.

He hasn’t used his Grace in any sort of capacity since he retrieved Castiel from between, the jaunts while he was chasing after Dean don’t count because they were more Trickster magic then Angel magic, he sends out a tiny tendril of it, just enough to make his presence known. It doesn’t need to be anymore then that and he doesn’t need to draw any unwanted attention to them.

He waits, Michael can be a stubborn ass, but so can he.

It takes a minute, over a minute actually, 64 seconds to be exact before there is an answering hum of Grace against the palm of his hand.

Gabriel smirks again, relaxing slightly because there was always that fear that he was wrong, that someone else had decided to usurp Michael’s place.

“Yeah, you kind of do,” Gabriel says. “But it’s okay, because it’s completely mutual.”

Dean doesn’t answer, just lays one hand over the one on his chest and then fists the other in Gabriel’s hair, yanking his head back.

Gabriel doesn’t fight; Michael won’t hurt him, not enough that it would matter.

“You think that means anything,” Dean says coldly.

“I think if it didn’t mean something you would have broken the bonds when I left,” Gabriel says, he doesn’t flinch at the feel of Dean pulling his hair; this is nothing and besides Michael is almost owed this. “Father would have disapproved but he would have helped you.”

“Maybe I wanted you in front of me when I did it, so you could feel the pain of betrayal, of abandonment just like I did.”

“You can be cruel, Michael,” Gabriel says softly. “You’re not _that_ cruel, you’re not Lucifer with his teen-age, daddy loves the new baby more then me so I’m going to kill the new baby angst.”

Dean narrows his eyes at him but doesn’t say anything, doesn’t agree or disagree or pull away.

And Gabriel still has his hand gripped in Dean’s t-shirt, he uses it to pull him forward, Dean doesn’t stop him other then to tighten the hand that he has wound through Gabriel’s hair. Gabriel makes a face but still leans up and presses his lips against Dean’s, nips at his bottom lip when he doesn’t respond.

Kisses his cheek, nuzzles his ear, waits for a hint that he will relent on this one thing.

“It’s been a long time,” he finally says, he pulls on Dean’s t-shirt but he’s an unmovable object and doesn’t tumble down on the bed like Gabriel expects him to.

“You’ve not exactly been celibate, Gabriel,” Dean says, Gabriel draws back just enough so that he can look him in the eye, or would be if Dean had his eyes open.

“Oh were you watching over me? That’s so sweet,” Gabriel coos, Dean scowls but doesn’t open his eyes. “And by the way there sweet pea, neither have you.” He watched the Winchesters for a lot of years; they were one of his favorite channels when he figured out what the ultimate game plan was. And Dean had never been anything _close_ to resembling celibate.

He was actually kind of easy; Gabriel should have tumbled him into a bed when he had the chance. Because _that_ Dean would have gone, he was all about trying new things, especially when he didn’t have Sam trailing after him like an overgrown lap dog and his father pushing and prodding him in his assigned directions. This Dean, Michael now without the coverings of Dean Winchester is _not_ easy.

But then Michael had never been, it was one of the reasons that Gabriel had known that regardless of those that threw themselves at Michael his place by Michael’s side had never been in jeopardy, Michael was always faithful.

“In this body, no,” Dean says. “Before,” he looks away, there’s a hint of a flush to his cheeks and Gabriel grins, tugging on the t-shirt again.

This time Dean comes, almost falling on top of him.

Gabriel knows how to do this; knows enough to spread his legs and even as Dean is coming up on his elbows making like he’s going to move away, well Gabriel is locking his legs around Dean’s. Holding him in place, while his hands go to his hips and he wishes that he’d had the foresight to position the pillows at little better, he’s flat on his back and he likes to have at least one pillow under his head.

“Let go, Gabriel,” Dean says.

“Yeah, not likely,” Gabriel says. “I let you go you’ll just pace in front of the door all night and where’s the fun in that for me?”

“I’m not sleeping with you.”

“Who said anything about sleeping,” Gabriel leers, Dean rolls his eyes and tries to shift within the limb lock that Gabriel has on him. He’s mostly unsuccessful, though if he keeps rubbing against him the way that he is Gabriel might be able to get off without their clothes even being removed.

“I’m not fucking you either,” Dean states. Gabriel would believe him if he couldn’t feel Dean pressed up against him.

“We’ll see,” Gabriel promises and slides his fingers into Dean’s back pockets.

  


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Castiel opens the door and Gabriel would almost feel sorry for the way that Dean practically bowls him over in his haste to get out of the room.

“You’re a fucking cock tease, Michael,” Gabriel calls after him.

Castiel looks mostly scandalized; Gabriel thinks that it says something about the purity of Castiel’s soul that even though he’d been traveling and watching Dean Winchester for the better part of year that he still has that purity.

Everyone is still clothed, though not from lack of trying on Gabriel’s part. He couldn’t even get Dean to take his t-shirt off, he doesn’t think he’s losing his touch but he also can’t test it out either.

With Michael being out there and him _knowing_ that Gabriel knows he’s out there, if Gabriel tries to take someone to his bed that someone will end up dead and Gabriel will end up being punished.

Normally that ended up being Michael withholding sex, so maybe he’s already punishing Gabriel.

  


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	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He hits the ground running. Gabriel's little stunt has put him hours behind schedule.

**Dean/Michael:**

  
He hits the ground running. Gabriel’s little stunt has put him hours behind schedule.

He hunts for Lucifer because there’s not a chance in Hell that he’s losing one little brother to another little brother.

He doesn’t know if Lucifer knows that it’s him that’s looking for him, but he knows that Lucifer knows _someone_ is looking.

Lucifer is not going to jeopardize what he believes to be the right course of action by trying to determine who is attempting to run him to ground. He’ll be found eventually, he’s nothing if not determined that Lucifer will not wear Sammy, ever.

  


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He doesn’t think of himself as Dean or Michael. In his mind he’s some conglomeration of both of them. He remembers being Dean Winchester and he remembers being Michael and he remembers loving his parents and brother without measure and he remembers loving Father and Gabriel and his brothers the same.

The sting of Gabriel’s betrayal is still there, it’s probably lucky that he was still mostly Dean Winchester when the Trickster was finally unmasked as Gabriel, if he’d been a fully aware Michael at the time the jig would have been completely up.

Gabriel looks different, when he’d run away it appears he tried to find the form that was the absolute complete opposite of what he was before; he probably could have hidden forever if he hadn’t been drawn to the Winchester’s.

If he hadn’t gotten involved.

Dean would never have looked for him; he’d given up looking for him years after he’d originally vanished. He’d never been quite sure what he’d done wrong, what he’d done that had driven Gabriel away from him.

Father had insisted that it was nothing that _he’d_ done. Michael hadn’t believed him then, Dean doesn’t now.

  


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Raphael finds him in Pakistan. Dean doesn’t know what Lucifer was doing there, though there is a town that is mostly destroyed so he has a pretty good idea that it wasn’t for the sun or the heat.

“So you let Gabriel back in your bed,” Raphael says. When Dean turns he can see that Raphael has chosen a new host; this one has his nose turned up and he looks as disapproving as a 25 year-old boy with eyeliner and girl jeans on can look.

“That’s not any of your concern, brother,” Dean states, his tone brooks no argument. He turns away and sifts through another pile of debris.

He’s not sure what he’s looking for, he thinks if there was something to find here that Lucifer has probably already taken it with him. There might be remnants left though, something that might pinpoint why Lucifer has seemingly given up pushing at Sam and shifted focus to other things.

He sits back on his heels and surveys the wreckage of this town. There is a black and white tom making himself comfortable in what might have once been a window, it begins cleaning his paws and when it deigns to look at Dean it does so with complete and utter derision.

“I think it is,” Raphael says. But then Raphael is third created, of course he’s going to argue. “If it distracts you, keeps you unfocused, then it is a concern.”

“Do I seem distracted or unfocused to you?” Dean asks. He comes easily to his feet and turns to face Raphael.

Raphael studies him, tilts his head to the side and narrows his eyes. He sighs finally, it’s long-suffering.

“I didn’t think so,” Dean says.

“What is he looking for?” Raphael asks finally, the subject change is not smooth. But nobody would ever call Raphael smooth; he’s never had to be.

“My sword most likely,” Dean says, he scans the horizon. It’s the only thing that he can think of that would draw Lucifer’s attention like this.

“It is here?” Raphael sounds incredulous, “you let it fall with you?”

Dean looks at him and Raphael looks suitably chastened at the expression on his face.

“I didn’t _let_ the sword do anything; it fell all on its lonesome.”

  


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If he thinks about family, he thinks he has two. Split unevenly like the product of a messy divorce and child custody battle. Where the children had been old enough to choose a side and not everyone made the same decision.

There are those that he has known forever and a day, those that he’s stood at the beginning of time with.

And then there are those that he has bonded with now, as this mixture of Dean and Michael.

Sam and Castiel and Bobby and, though he’s loathe to admit it or even say it out loud, Gabriel.

  


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Dean feels like he’s two steps behind Lucifer, he finds two more towns decimated; the burning, smoldering remains of temper tantrums thrown by a bratty younger brother.

He sighs.

“Is that the same…” Raphael is behind him, again. Dean would almost rather go back to the days when Gabriel was attempting to badly stalk him instead of Raphael hounding his footsteps. When Dean looks at up he sees that Raphael isn’t looking at him, he’s looking at the black and white tom sitting on a pile of rubble.

“It’s markings are completely different,” Dean says, rolling his eyes, he looks away. There’s frustration gnawing in the pit of his stomach.

“Maybe it is time to call in the others,” Raphael says, his tone is sweetly saccharine. If he wasn’t wearing a boy younger then Sam, Dean might be inclined to hit him. “I can summon them if you like.”

“I can handle this,” Dean says.

“Yes, you are doing such a _wonderful_ job at ‘handling this’, brother,” Raphael mutters and Dean looks over at him with eyebrows arched, Raphael looks suitably abashed at sounding like the petulant barely out of his teen-age years that he’s possessing.

  


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Gabriel is waiting for him when he returns home. Dean has been trying to time his returns for when the house is quiet, some nights he returns and lingers a ways away from the house, waits until the house goes quiet and dark before he goes in.

It’s wrong, and kind of childish, but he spends all day trying to track one brother down, he doesn’t have the energy to fend off Gabriel’s advances.

“Should I be concerned that Lucifer is more important to you then I?” Gabriel asks. His eyes are boring holes into him and Dean rolls his own in response.

He leans into him, it’s the first time that he can recall voluntarily going into Gabriel’s space since he remembered, Gabriel touches his arm. The fingers of one hand go around Dean’s arm and his grip is tight and sure.

“I’d be more concerned about the impending apocalypse, but whatever floats your boat, dude,” Dean says.

Gabriel kisses him, surging forward, turning him in a smooth move that leaves him pressing Dean back against the side of the house. Dean lets him, even kisses him back after a moment; it’s been a long time since he’s wanted Gabriel to touch him. When Gabriel had first run out on him all he’d wanted to do was punish him, to hurt Gabriel as Gabriel had hurt him.

Now…

Dean places one hand against Gabriel’s chest and pushes, Gabriel backs off willingly enough, maybe because he’d gotten something of what he’d wanted.

“This is not the time,” Dean says softly. He doesn’t say that it’s wrong, that it’ll never happen. Because he knows enough about himself and Gabriel to know that it isn’t and that it will. He just hopes that it’s after Lucifer has been bound either back in Hell or in chains at Father’s feet to do with as he so wishes.

He peels Gabriel’s fingers from his arm and steps away, sliding out of Gabriel’s space as easily as he’d slid in.

The house is silent when he walks in, Sam is most likely tossing and turning fitfully, he wonders what task Gabriel has given Castiel to accomplish that would take him away. He walks up the stairs and he doesn’t need to look to know that Gabriel is following him. Since that night when Gabriel first confronted him with his knowledge, Gabriel has left him mostly in peace; that looks to be over.

He pushes the door open and stops dead; he feels Gabriel’s hand settling low on his back as he stares at the bed.

Gabriel nudges him into the room and aside, closing the door with a soft click behind them.

In the center of the bed a black and white tom is having a staring contest with Dean. Dean is sorry to say that it is a contest that he’s sure that he’s losing.

“Well that’s not a sight that you see every day,” Gabriel says, his voice is amused. “A pussy in Michael’s bed, who would have thought.”

The tom looks at Gabriel and the look that it shoots him is less then impressed.

Dean takes a step forward.

“Michael,” Gabriel says, he grabs at Dean’s shoulder and Dean shoves his hand off. He takes another step.

The tom stares at him and its tail flicks lazily against the bedspread.

“_You_, are a nuisance and a half,” Dean says. He picks the tom up off the bed and it goes gracefully enough, settling itself in the cradle of Dean’s arms, rubbing its head against the underside of Dean’s chin.

When Dean turns he sees Gabriel staring at him, incredulous eyes going back and forth between Dean and the cat cradled in his arms.

“What. The. Hell.”

Dean smirks and runs a hand along the cats back, it arches into his touch and he doesn’t know what it looks like to Gabriel but to his eye, to eyes that have seen this happen before and taught it how to be done…

It looks like the cat’s body is stretching and morphing until Dean is cradling his sword in his arms.

  


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Lucifer attacks in the morning, Dean has barely risen when the wards on the house shudder with the impact and the rest of the house wakes in a panic.

He stands at a window and looks. He can’t see Lucifer yet but he knows he’s there, just as he knows that the youngest of his siblings won’t physically show himself until he can no longer wait.

  


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He wants to send Sam away, wishes that it was an _option_ to send Sam and Castiel to a safe haven. If he thought he could get Gabriel to go, if he didn’t know without a doubt that if he sent Sam away that Lucifer would follow him, he would. He keeps them in the house, even though a part of him is desperate to protect his family. If Sam is still in the house then they trap Lucifer into attacking them there.

Raphael appears at the doorway and Dean isn’t sure how he came to be there, Gabriel’s wards are some of the best.

Behind him, scattered on the porch are ten of their brothers. They look battle worn already and Dean wonders if they fought their way through Lucifer’s lines just to get to the house.

  


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Gabriel and Raphael snap and snarl at each other as only brothers who feel as if they’ve been betrayed by the other can do.

Castiel sits in the corner of the room, watching, he does not offer any comment on the fights breaking out around the house. Besides Sam he is the youngest being in the house. He probably feels like a child being allowed at the big people table only because half the family didn’t show up and there were enough chairs.

Dean should probably intervene but he finds his attention consumed by keeping Sam from giving himself to Lucifer in order to stop the assault on the house.

“He would kill us all,” Camael says bluntly when nothing that Dean is saying is penetrating Sam’s thick skull any longer. “He’ll take you, then he’ll use your body to fight Michael and then he’ll kill the rest of us.”

“I might be able to control him, long enough…” Sam says.

“Long enough for _what_? For your brother to plunge his sword through your heart? Because that won’t completely _destroy_ him or anything,” Gabriel snaps.

Dean looks over at Raphael and he’s staring at Gabriel with a considering expression on his face.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Gabriel snaps, then turns on his heel. “I’m going upstairs, call me when we’re going to decide to stop hiding like scared teen-age girls and fucking do something.”

  


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Dean faces Lucifer alone. Gabriel is sulking in his room and the others are still arguing over what their options are.

He goes out the backdoor and he thinks Castiel sees him leave but he doesn’t stop him, he also doesn’t follow. On his back he can feel the comforting weight of his sword.

Lucifer meets him halfway, he’s a mess. A bloody, horrific mess, the body he wears is almost completely burnt through and Dean feels sadness for him because it didn’t need to be this way. He could have just accepted the new children and all would have been well.

“Come to fight me, brother?” Lucifer asks. “Come to be Father’s lapdog and assassin and put me in my place?”

“I can’t let you destroy these people, this world,” Dean says quietly. “If it means killing you then that’s a sacrifice that I’m prepared to make.”

His hand goes to his sword, and it’s warm to his touch, familiar and comfortable in his grip.

Besides Gabriel, the sword had been his best friend for as long as he can remember.

  


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Pain.

There’s pain and light and there’s an echoing, never ending scream.

It takes a millisecond for him to realize that scream is his.

  


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He’s on his stomach; the bed below him is soft and there’s a weight against his back and his side.

His hand is still gripped tight around the hilt of his sword and he blinks, turning his head to the side where the weight is situated.

Gabriel sleeps next to him, his face is pale and wan and he does not look peaceful.

“Dean?” he hears and he turns his head to the other side.

Sam is sitting in a chair by the edge of the bed. He looks scared and there is relief just dawning in his eyes.

“Four weeks,” Gabriel whispers in his ear. “Four fucking weeks, and you just _had_ to do it by yourself, didn’t you.”

“I wouldn’t sacrifice any of you to anything that I wouldn’t do myself,” his voice is hoarse and sounds unfamiliar to his ears.

Gabriel rests his head against Dean’s shoulder and when Dean goes to shift, to sit up, he realizes that the heavy weight against his back is his wings.

His wings, in full view of Sammy and everybody that would choose to walk into the room. The proof of who and what he is.

“We couldn’t get them to go back,” Gabriel says. “Even Raphael tried and he said that when you were ready, when it was time that they would go.”

Dean twists his head so that he can see them and they flutter at him like they have a mind of their own and are waving their hello. Dean lets his head drop and breathes; concentrates and he can feel the moment where they phase out of existence.

Gabriel takes their place, pulling Dean onto his side and wrapping his arms around him. The expression on Sam’s face is pained as Dean reaches up and lays one hand against Gabriel’s skin.

He can feel the smirk against the side if his neck.

“Where’s Cas?” he asks. When he’d thought about how this would end, if he was triumphant over Lucifer, he’d thought it would end the same way that it had begun. With the four of them in a room, waiting for the injured party to waken.

“He’s helping the others with clean-up,” Sam says. “He’s been here though, they’ve all been here.”

“So Sammy and I have reached an agreement,” Gabriel says brightly. “If I promised to not molest you in front of him he promised to not try and stab me with whichever Archangel Blade he could get his hands on first.”

“I didn’t promise that, I promised that I’d _think_ about it.”

“Same diff.”

Dean laughs.

  


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End file.
